Week 1: Austen’s Plotting
We will try to define special qualities of Austen’s fiction: her subtle way of revealing her characters’ inner selves and showing how her heroines develop a perception of others through encountering the problems of love and marriage-choice in a highly conventional society.
Week 2: Social Hierarchy
We will map the social hierarchy of the world of Pride and Prejudice and then turn to the wonderful comedy of Mr. Collins’s proposal to Elizabeth Bennet. A quick acceptance of him by her best friend does lead Elizabeth to serious reflections on marriage as a life-settlement for the woman.
Week 3: Dangerous Men
The role of Mr. Wickham, the novel’s dangerous male character, provides a striking instance of the difficulty Austen’s heroines confront in attempting to make out the true nature of the men in the novel, especially when they come from a different social milieu.
Week 4: Self-Interrogation
We will examine in careful detail Elizabeth’s response to Mr. Darcy’s letter after her insulting refusal of his proposal. The incident provides the most dramatic instance in Austen’s fiction of the heroine’s mood of reconsideration and self-questioning.
Week 5: Misalliance and Education
The frank acknowledgement of the escapade of Elizabeth’s party-girl sister, Lydia, with Mr. Wickham reveals how Pride and Prejudice shares more with Regency than Victorian values and concerns. The task of saving Lydia from her fate completes an education for Mr. Darcy that began with Elizabeth’s rejection of him.
Week 6: Austen’s Descendants
We will conclude by comparing Pride and Prejudice to Emma, another great novel of learning through experience. We will also consider Austen’s affinity with the fiction of her most obvious descendent, George Eliot, and her wide influence on fiction generally and on women novelists in particular.
